[08:55p] › You are now known as WaylandSmith.
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[08:55p] Topic is: (RoG) Port Kar - Post-apocalyptic roleplay
[08:55p] Roleplay in. Setting: various places in and around Port Kar.
[08:57p] WaylandSmith Having bathed, Wayland was surprised by the visit of his friend Fury - she brought warm food which was most welcome as well as a tale that Dalamar needed to attend to something and would be away for a few days. If he were not back within a few days they should move on but he was going to try his hardest. With some time to kill they agreed to explore the city each in their own way, Fury to recover whatever useful items had been left momentarily without supervision or owner.
[09:02p] WaylandSmith the smith from his side indicated a desire to visit the Council Hall of Captains and perhaps peruse the home of the house of Samos - if he could find it. Samos was the quasi-legendary captain of Port Kar and his home could not fail to to be the cross roads of much intelligence from all over Gor. The Karian captains were notoriously well informed about goings on well beyond the reach of their pirate navy and the tales retold by the slaves they sold throughout the planet.
[09:15p] WaylandSmith Tying up his boat he looked again at the water - it came to him that it had lost its goodness as it were, death had not only come to the humans in Port Kar but also to the lifeblood of every human city the water -it also smelt unusually brackish probably a consequence of the rise of the Thassa and the water in the Tamber gulf. It seems animal life could not stand the new salinity.
[09:28p] WaylandSmith The hall of the Council of Captains was a grand building placed in a large open space - if only for that reason it stood out in a city otherwise built higgeldy-piggeldy without thought of planning or ratio. The only limit being the waters of the Vosk delta that provided high roads to be crossed by skiff or flat boat. Entering the hall the smith noticed something odd, the hall was completely deserted, and the positions of the guards at the entrance looked overrun. No dead people... Oddly that was disturbing.
[09:33p] WaylandSmith The incongruity of the large hall lacking any fallen Karians made the smith look back at the square, the square by contrast looked normal. A smattering of a few dozen bodies now swelling unpleasantly positioned around the square, a little cart standing to the side that sold meat pies if the sign was to be believed surrounded by three corpses. Here at the entrance of the Council hall and inside - nothing. Instead the guard barrier was overturned, weapons lay scattered as did the entry ledger...
[09:39p] WaylandSmith Looking to left and right as if expecting a sudden attack, the smith picked up the entry ledger. It was ripped and the heavy leather spine bent to breaking letting the leaves of the book loose, it was also stained with blood and a brown sludge he could not identify. Flipping through it he found the last page or first page depending on how you saw it, a scribe had started to write something but a big scratch and a blood stain spoke of a more than determined ending to the entry.
[09:50p] WaylandSmith All that could be read was BLACK CASTE: and there it ended - all other entries contained a reference to caste - unusual in Port Kar, the book was also set with a mark of the Priest Kings and not the Karian pirate sail. Tucking it under his arm he walked across the main hall to where an ornate if modestly sized door seemed to have been rammed open with the help of one of the benches that lined the domed building.
[09:51p]
WaylandSmith : None of this makes sense - everyone in town fell dead where they stood but here right before the end a struggle seems to have taken place?
[09:53p] WaylandSmith Making his way through the broken door Wayland found a winding staircase barely broad enough for him to walk through without his shoulders wiping the walls - again recent signs of combat were evident as the defenders fought from the higher level able to swing their swords right handed whilst any would be attackers were hampered by the orientation of the stairs. Pole arms and pikes being too long to be usefully employed in such close quarters.
[09:55p] WaylandSmith Regardless of their positioning the defenders seemed to have had the worse of it - the stair case seemed almost endless winding round and round till the smith lost any notion of how high up he might be. Finally it came out on a plateau and here again pools of blood indicated recent combat but no bodies were present. The platform led through to a single large room, it was set with maps now torn from their casings. A globe showing all of known Gor smashed open, a desk turned over its contents spread out.
[09:58p] WaylandSmith Rarely had Wayland seen a room more thoroughly ransacked but here at least there was one sign of extinct human life, the armoured body of a captain of Kar with the characteristic sleen hair helmet. In his hand that weapon unique to Port Kar, the dagger whip but it hard served him not as a long sharp dagger protruded from his back straight through his sternum.
[10:07p] WaylandSmith scratching his head the smith wondered at this unexpected sight - here was a captain and quite possibly THE captain of Port Kar dead - like his city - but by the looks of it assasinated and that whilst he held a weapon. The room in which the man had held court so thoroughly ransacked that it appeared the work of a madman because neither gold nor precious items seemed to be taken, priceless vases smashed and cupboard broken open and turned over.
[10:16p] WaylandSmith The other thing that made no sense was that besides the body of the captain there was not a single dead body. As the captain lay face down on an impulse Wayland turned him over, his face expressed more surprise than terror his hand clasping the dagger whip seemed to be holding something. Prising the fingers from the handle he found a torn card depicting half a carnival tent and a male figure waving with roses in hand before a tower.
[10:16p]
WaylandSmith : Another one. *Wayland murmured*
[10:18p] WaylandSmith Scouring the room he could find nothing of consequence - the final thing he did was to open the large paned window that looked to the South - it opened on a view that extended to the south and gave an unimpeded view of the gulf that protected Port Kar. Reminding himself of protocol he picked up the body of the dead captain and set him on that window ledge - dead legs swinging down in the time honoured manner to grant respect to a deceased Karian.
[10:20p] WaylandSmith When he lifted the body through the window the head brushed against the outer wall of the tower of the captain - as Wayland now knew himself to be in - a letter hastily hidden in a cleft of the stones of the weathered well was swept loose by the sleen hair helmet. It could have flown away from the grasp of the smith but a gust of wind from the Tamber gulf blew it into the room instead.
[10:20p]
WaylandSmith : What's this then?
[10:22p] WaylandSmith The letter was unusual the paper made by some Master of the craft or not of Gor - it bore a symbol of the white castes on it. The contents were terse:
'When the waters of the Tamber gulf flood the marshes - send signal to Ven. Then leave immediately - death will collect all that stay.’